Author's note: A drabble which didn't fit, but I loved it and wanted to share it. I hope you enjoy it, and I would love to read your reviews.
Disclaimer: None of the characters featured belong to me, they belong to Disney and Meg Cabot. I make no monetary gain from writing.
Some days she's exhausted, and there's nothing he can do for her. Today is one of those days, where her morning began before sunrise and finished amongst the blankets of darkness. And there is the other panic too, circling the periphery of their carefully - and delicately – structured world as if it is a phantom. She rubs her eyes with the firm heel of her hand, and it smears the day's mascara onto her sharp cheek bone.
She turns to him, "Have I just done what I think I've done?"
He laughs gently, then as if a reflex his thumb reaches out to rub the smudge away. She withdraws from his finger, her head inching back towards the window, as her eyes slide to the driver and Shades on the other side of the partition. His hand moves from mid-air, up to the ceiling, and the partition slides up.
"Sorry," he whispers, sliding across the seat, chastened because of his own lack of consideration.
He knows why she's reacted like this, they both do, but they haven't had the intrepidity to discuss it yet. He had saw her pouring over it though, when she thought she was alone, at breakfast. He'd done the same thing that morning, throwing it onto the bed with a cry of rage. He'd had no idea what it would be like by the evening.
"We need to be more careful," she says into the silence, at length.
"I-"
"I am right."
"I am not disputing that," he says quietly, "But need we discuss it now?"
"Where else?" She says, not coldly, but not with intense affection either.
Her eyes are trained ahead and he will not ask her to look at him. It had to come eventually, but with such firmness of purpose, it has shattered him.
"Fair enough."
"We need to…." she is struggling over the words, "It needs to stop. Too much is at stake."
"I need to deal with the staff," he mutters, clutching at straws.
"It isn't just the staff," she folds her fingers in her lap, "But it's a good place to start."
"Is that it, then?"
He know he sounds furious but he can't help it.
"What else do you suggest?"
Her voice quavers and slides into nothing. He risks a look at her and sees tears pooling in her eyes.
"Nothing," he says softly, gently, "Nothing. You are right."
She nods emphatically, as if she needed him to confirm what they both knew.
"I am sor-"
She continues but he cuts her off.
"Don't," he interrupts her, "Don't apologise. I understand."
"I bloody don't!"
Her words are furious and strangled and her fist thumps uselessly against the leather of the seat. Her mascara mingles with her tears as they track down her face. He doesn't go near her though; it wouldn't help her.
Instead there is only silence and nothing between them, aside from the handkerchief he offers her, and then they arrived within ten minutes. They don't go round the front – too many press by this point – but he herds her into the kitchen, where it is warm and the staff are silent and wary.
They are silent, too, as he escorts her to her chamber. No night cap – not in her company at least – and no quiet tumbles in the secrecy of her bedroom, where he feels finally, suddenly, alive.
He doesn't know how long for but he refuses to believe it will be forever. He's a naïve fool, but he's come to accept it.
He bows but he does not kiss her hand. She doesn't offer it.
She needs time. He'll need to reconstruct what has been demolished today: that carefully structured, delicately balanced world. He'll need to peel layers off again, take away the fear and the anguish.
He doesn't know how many times he can do it.
There are thousands of messages on his voice mail, but he doesn't listen to them, and Charlotte only goes away when he literally refuses to speak to her.
He pours himself an indecently huge whiskey and, returning to his bed, lifts it within trembling hands. The picture is as vague as it is incriminating. He curses the long lenses, the paparazzi who think it's okay to do that, to pry into her life. He was holding her, like he should do, as if she belonged only to him. It's not the first time he's made that mistake, and it certainly won't be the last.
'They're having an affair', Palace informant claims, the titles reads, 'And they have been for years.'
It would be useless to deny it.